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Last weekend we were in Birmingham, Michigan for the 33rd Art Birmingham Show. Birmingham, Michigan is an affluent city north of Detroit.  The venue is Shain Park which is in the center of downtown.  The show is set up on the wide park walkways and the adjacent streets. The show is run by the Guild of Artists and Artisans in conjunction with the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center. 

This was a 700 mile drive for us and our first experience showing our work in the "North" as we say in Alabama. We are from Ann Arbor which is about an hour away from the show.  Sara's parents live there and put is up, or put up with us as the case may be, when we are in town.  My children and grandchild live in the area, so we combined a Mother's Day visit with an Art Show. Despite the drive we thought our expenses would be low enough to have a chance to make a profit.  

Weather in Michigan is very iffy in early May.  There have been Mother's Day weekends with snow and driving rain.  The long range forecast for the weekend was perfect.  But as the weekend approached, the forecast deteriorated.

The city would not close the streets until 5pm so load in was a bit hectic.  Times were staggered by 30 minutes but it is almost impossible to unload in that amount of time and then move your vehicle for the next group.  As a result when we arrived at 8pm the street was jammed with vehicles.  This situation was compounded by artists who did not know how to drive or park their trucks in tight quarters.  A general rule of thumb is "don't buy it if you can't drive it."  Practice backing with a trailer in a parking lot, not on a crowded street.  It took us our usual 4 hours to set up.  So, by the time we got back to Ann Arbor it was 1am. 

In the meantime the weather forecast had gone from bad to worse.  Before we left to set up the local weather guru said a front would move through late afternoon on Saturday and then clear out later that night.  By the time we got back it was an 80% chance of rain all day.  We woke up to cloudy skies but no rain and the forecast had changed to a 30% chance of rain.  Despite the improved forecast, the damage had been done.  The crowd on Saturday was sparse at best. You could have shot a gun down the street at 2pm and not hit anyone.  We had a couple of sprinkles but that was it. The side benefit of light crowds is that you can spend more time talking to the people that do show up.  A photographer stopped by our booth to check out our work and said he quit doing the show because the weather was so unpredictable.  We did less that $200.00 in business and called it a day. But, we had a great dinner at my daughter's house.  

Sunday was another story for us.  The weather was perfect as was predicted.  I walked the show in the morning and spoke with some of the other artists who all reported dismal Saturday sales.  At about 11am the crowds showed up.  We made three big sales and several smaller ones.  It was our second best sales day.  

Load out was easy.  We dollied our unsold work a couple of blocks to avoid damage during break down.  By the time we got back, there was plenty of room for us to stack our things.  On our street the booths were packed in as close as possible.  The booths on the park walkways had far more space between them. 

There was an artist's amenities tent with coffee, bananas, and pastries each morning.  The only food vendors on site were a hot dog guy and a kettle corn stand.  However, there was a wide variety of very good restaurants with a block of the venue.  The staff was very helpful.  

The only negatives were the late load in on Friday.  There is not much that can be done if the city will not close the streets.  There was a drummer from the local high school band that chose to practice his art for about an hour and a half near our booth Saturday afternoon.  Poor sales, little sleep, and a drum do not make for a pleasant afternoon.  Sara had a sinus headache Sunday morning and threatened bodily harm if he showed up again.  I said no jury would convict her and to go ahead a do what had to be done. Luckily he did not reappear.  

Our sales were good and would have been great if Saturday had been better.  Not everyone was so fortunate.  A metal sculpture artist down from us had a bad show.  The pen and ink artist next to us was happy with her sales.  So, it was a mixed bag. We did not see a lot of big 2D art walk past but there were several exits so we may have missed something.  

Overall this was a good experience for us.  We proved that our work has legs outside the Southeast. Despite the drive, we had a good time visiting with Sara's parents and my kids.  We especially enjoyed the dog show that strolled by our booth, particularly the Black and Tan Coonhound.  Unlike our mutts, they knew how to behave in polite company and walked well on leash. We made decent money and enjoyed a celebratory dinner afterwards at a close by restaurant my son in law recommended. By the way, the Social Kitchen and Bar has great Martinis and Sea Bass. Our lunches came from a Panera two blocks away. With one exception, everyone in our row we talked to was doing the show for the first time, which is usually a red flag for us. But we think that was due to weather issues in the past. If you are in the area and want to gamble on Michigan weather in May, we would recommend this show.

As an aside, this show fell on the first anniversary of our first show.  To date we have done nine shows.  Obviously, this is not a vast amount of experience.  We have received so much help and advice along the way from other artists and have learned a great deal from our experiences. We believe in "paying it forward". So, in a future blog post we will summarize what we have learned for anyone reading this site contemplating entering the art fair world. Hopefully we can help them avoid some of the costly mistakes we have made a long the way.